Living After The Sun Died

[Land Outcast]

A note turning to the cities and towns (wherever they might be): paranoia
Who's a spy?
Who's controlled?
Who isn't?

 

[JustKim]

Finally, there is magic to consider. If I recall correctly Daylight is one of the spells that can be tied to a Hallowed area. Some celestials might be willing to Hallow several adjacent areas. If a heating charm can be created that can be tied to a Hallow (and I can see lots of deities allowing this, as it keeps their worshipper alive), then small isolated communities will likely dot the entire world. As their population grows the area affected could be slowly expanded with more Hallowed regions. If the communities are near enough, then they might even send dog sled runners between them - for trade, for intermarriages, to organize to deal with a local dragon or aberration menace, etc.

I don't know if this was your intention, but I'd have a problem with using daylight to make plants grow. The spell is just a bright light, it isn't actually solar light. Thematically, filling a small area with the kind of energy that powers 99.9% of the earth's systems from 90 million miles away would have a slightly larger effect than giving you light to read by. Mechanically, vampires and other creatures affected by sunlight are not similarly affected by daylight. It's just a descriptive for bright light and shouldn't be a replacement for solar energy.

If you just want to illuminate an area, sure, it'll do that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But that's not the issue. Sunlight is. You cannot power photosynthesis without sunlight, and that's what powers the entire life cycle of the planet.

All I'm saying is that it's possible to have a life-cycle that is NOT powered by sunlight, but by geothermal energy. I mean, when life began on this rock, it began as algae and bacteria. If the Illithids ate our sun, we'd still have algae and bacteria, and in a few billion years, we'd have smart (albeit blind) life again, as long as we have a moon.

The sun is important for our life now. But it's not essential to life period. I don't care how small or uncivilized the population that can live is, as long as a population lives, evolution and natural selection will take the course from there and repopulate everything it can.

Which is why vast fungal forests and algae webs growing in canyons make a lot of sense for a sunless world.

 

[Nadaka]

Only a few centuries of ice cover? Life is pretty hardy. A few centuries of ice cover will not kill all complex plant life. Some seeds, spores and "hybernating" plants will likely survive. And without competition, will likely flourish during the "big thaw".

The world won't be the same, and all the "animals" would either have to be the kind that survive freezes like certain insects, amphibians, reptiles, etc or a creature that found some kind of refuge in subsurface areas.

Of course, in our nonmagical world only the smallest of animals could survive even a few decades of freezing by surviving in burrows, but in a magical world? who knows?

 

[Nifft]

Free-Range Antagonists that the Illithids didn't kill off:
- Dragons (can eat anything)
- Frost Giants
- Nymphs (and anything else that feeds on natural beauty rather than actual food)
- Ethereal Filchers (who knows what they eat?)

C, -- N

 

[Tonguez]

The largest of the geothermal vent creatures is the Giant Tubeworm which has sulphur oxidising bacteria in their organs which they use to create 'food' (they otherwise have no mouth, gut or anus)

So if a world powered by chemosynthesis did exsist it would be one based on Oozes, Slimes and Tubeworms. On the surface however all life would be extinct within three years (until the oozes made the move)

In fact using the example of oozes might also explain what powers the Underdark - perhaps the lower levels of the underdark are inhabited by huge numbers of Ooze creatures which are preyed upon by the higher lifeforms (like Darkmantles )

 

[ssampier]

Sounds like the "Others" from George R.R. Martin's world can take over.

*once you have the logistics all figured out.

Sounds neat. I am not sure I'd want to permanently play in a such a world, however.

 

[reason]

...

Sounds like you have narrative freedom to take this in any number of directions. At the one extreme you have the explosive growth of an awakened ecosystem - the warming of the world when the On/Off star turns on after centuries in A Deepness in the Sky is a good model.

At the other extreme, you have a world turned barren and swept clean by ice, in which every vale looks like the arid valleys of Antarctica; pebbles, boulders, rock - no soil, no plants, no living thing. The entire land surface is a dark, cold desert, the unthawed seas lifeless.

I explored a somewhat related take on the latter theme in Spirits of Rock and Sky; absolute scarcity of resources, the social structures that evolve, the nature of the oasis in such a world.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[LightPhoenix]

All I'm saying is that it's possible to have a life-cycle that is NOT powered by sunlight, but by geothermal energy. I mean, when life began on this rock, it began as algae and bacteria. If the Illithids ate our sun, we'd still have algae and bacteria, and in a few billion years, we'd have smart (albeit blind) life again, as long as we have a moon.

It's possible, but I don't think it's possible on a plantary scale. Chemosynthetic organisms (or the radiosynthetic one recently discovered) are pretty small as it is, and mostly anaerobic. The problem with chemosythetic organisms in a minimal/no-sun world are numerous. Access to geothermal energy is generally deep underground, and where it isn't (volcanoes) they are pretty harsh conditions... life wouldn't flourish in the caldera of an active volcano. While cryo-resistant anaerobic bacteria would flourish, they wouldn't flourish fast enough for all life to be preserved, and there isn't much in the way of nutrients on top of glaciers - it's all at ground level. Furthermore, existing life would burn through oxygen in the atmosphere rather quickly, as oxygen-producing plants would die pretty quickly. Without plants, there's no herbivores, without them there's no carnivores. Some fungi may be able to live without light, yes, and they would thrive with all the carcasses around. However, even fungi need oxygen, and they don't produce it, so while they would be the last complex organisms to go, more than likely, they too would eventually die off. Within a century life would be destroyed, no doubt.

The basic premise requires a giant handwave - just assume it works and don't worry about it. Science and fantasy don't get along well at all.

 

[jim pinto]

The basic premise requires a giant handwave - just assume it works and don't worry about it. Science and fantasy don't get along well at all.

i agree there

this is a great idea for a game world and muddying it up with science is going to stop you from having fun with it. just have the occupants adapt the changes in the world (magical or otherwise) and go from there

here's a http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/doomsday_timeline.php#perma about the ecosystem that could help, but it might be the reverse of what you need

nonetheless, it's great gaming fare